Spring Arena

Friday, 7 September 2018

The All Progress Congress Governors bidding to use the indirect or consensus options in producing party candidates were, yesterday, coming under fresh threats with the injunction that a protest from any stakeholder or aspirant will lead to the cancellation of the exercise and resort to direct primary.

The seeming opposition by the governors to the direct primary option, urban express news online gathered, yesterday, was a significant reason for the high price placed on the nomination forms of the party. The governors, it was gathered, had as a result of the rebuff of their pleas for indirect primaries, chosen not to fund the direct primary, a development that has compelled the national secretariat to mobilise funds from the sale of the forms to fund the direct primary option. “Anywhere they do indirect or consensus and one of the aspirants or any of the stakeholders complain, that exercise would be cancelled, and the national headquarters will send people to go and do direct primaries,” a high-level source in the national party secretariat was quoted as saying

. Asked of the party’s capacity to conduct direct primaries in the light of the logistics involved in gathering party members to meet at ward levels to choose their candidates, the source said: “That is part of the reasons the prices of nomination forms are high because we want to raise money from the proceeds of the sale of the forms to fund the direct primaries. “The governors, who were supposed to fund the direct primaries, are the ones complaining. So, their strategy is to stop funding for the party as they are already saying that they don’t have money for it.”

Meanwhile, another state chapter of the All Progressive Congress this time in rivers state had also jettisoned the party’s directive on Direct Primaries and instead opted for indirect Primaries to elect its candidates for the 2019 general election.

The decision followed reports of insecurity in the state and lack of a coordinated membership database for supporters of the party in the state as presented by the party’s executives.

The state APC took the decision at an expanded State Executive Committee meeting in Port Harcourt, yesterday, in which 106 voted in favour of the indirect primaries against three and one who voted for consensus and direct primaries respectively. Addressing newsmen at the end of the meeting, Chairman of the Party, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, said the party after a long deliberation resolved to adopt indirect primaries. Amachree said: “After the meeting of the expanded executives of the party, we decided to use indirect primaries in electing our candidates. The reasons for this decision are because of issues of insecurity in the state and the lack of membership database.

We will transmit this decision to the national body of the party.” Meanwhile, the Senator representing Rivers East in the National Assembly, Sen. Andrew Uchendu, described the resolution as apt. He said: “We may not have a safe venue where we will have security for direct primaries. You know there is a government here in the state that does not want to see APC.

That may be an avenue for attacks. “It will be good that we spread out so that if they try to attack us, before they will attack two places, security men would have taken charge.” Also, former leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, said direct primaries would have caused disaffection in the party, adding that indirect primary was safe and less expensive to organise.